5 Orange Flowers with Butterfly Powers

Orange Blooms that Bring Home the Butterflies

Orange is the color of scrumptious sorbet, autumn-touched leaves, and prize-winning pumpkins…it’s also the main color of magnificent monarch butterflies!

Would you like to add orange ambience to your butterfly garden? If so, there are wonderful floral options to satisfy both you and your monarch guests.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the dwindling monarch population. As gardeners, we have a great opportunity to help save the monarchs, while making our butterfly garden dreams come true at the same time!

All of the orange flowers pictured below have long bloom periods to maximize potential visitors to your abode. Try one or more to start your butterfly garden party for monarchs and other beneficial pollinators…

A long blooming native milkweed best known for its ability to attract a wide variety of butterflies and beneficial pollinators. The only milkweed species with orange flowers.

Photo by Robert & Pat Rogers of PLR Photos

4.

Senecio confusus (Mexican flame vine)This exotic climbing vine is a perennial for USDA hardiness zones 9 and above, but you can pot them to be overwintered in colder zones. The photo below is my second year plant which will start blooming before July…in Minnesota! If fertilizing, use a phosphorous-based fertilizer to promote flowering.

A Fast Climber

5.Buddleja (flutterby grande ‘tangerine dream’ butterfly bush)

A sweetly fragrant aroma with inviting orange blooms is the perfect combination for attracting hummingbirds, monarchs, and more. It’s also a ‘sterile’ variety that is not invasive…no matter where your garden grows!

Comments

i’m trying 3 butterfly weed, asclepias tuberosa (orange/yellow mix flowers) in a sunny border that gets watered with the lawn. i’m in zone 5-6. what do think my chances are? do i need to fertilize? when and with what? do you think they’ll spread if i don’t bind the pods? that would be fine with me.

Hi Barbara, many factors contribute to the success/failure of milkweed but your spot sounds like it should work. You can fertilize with a general all-purpose fertilizer, but it’s not absolutely necessary. Here are some we’ve used over the years: